Griffin's Guardian Angel
by That G33Ky Girl
Summary: When Griffin is seriously injured, he jumps to the only person who he knows can help.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue. Pretty please?

Chapter One

The jump was sloppy and the jumpscar was still hanging in the air, when Griffin returned to my apartment, not the mention a good deal of the dirt he was standing on. I felt irritation at the dirt he'd left all over my nice new rug, followed by a good deal of relief at the knowledge that Griffin was still alive (with jumpers, you never really know). He gave me a tired sort of half-smile, then collapsed. He was unconscious before he hit the ground. I was at his side in an instant, and turned him over, since he'd fallen face first. That was when I found the blood. It had already soaked through his shirt and was in the process of irreversibly staining my new rug. I put my hands on his chest, trying vainly to stem the bleeding, before I realized it was hopeless. I pulled them away, covered in his blood. I grabbed a blanket off one of the nearby sofas and pressed it to the wound, distantly noting its depth and severity. I'd worked as an EMT in a hospital in New York before my… ability manifested itself and I'd had to move around a lot, living like a jumper, only without the ability to move with ease. At first, Griffin had tried to help me when he could, but as I grew more proficient with my skills, we'd drifted apart. I guess, no, I _knew_, that he didn't need me, and, I, well, I was definitely surviving on my own. Luckily, my talent isn't as common as a jumper's, or I'd probably have Paladin-types after me. My talent was a lot easier to keep secret as well. I looked at Griffin's unconscious face, and could see a level of pain and panic there I'd never seen before. I knew that he had known how bad his wound was before he'd passed out. I probed his mind a little deeper for details of what'd happened. I remembered how difficult Griffin could be, even in his subconscious, so I closed my eyes to concentrate better and immersed myself in the memory.

"Holy shit!" Griffin thought as he dodged another swipe of Roland's knife, trying desperately not to get hacked in half. He didn't remember what he'd said to Roland, but it'd really pissed him off. It seemed that his nasty habit of saying whatever was most likely to get him sawed in half by a large, angry Paladin had returned. He smirked at Roland, then jumped behind him, landing a couple of good blows on him with his bare fists (his usual baseball bat having been ripped out of his hands a few minutes previously), but Roland was fast, really fast for an old dude, and he'd already spun around, and grabbed him by the arm, twisting it around behind his back and pushing it up, hard. SHIT! He heard something snap, and a blinding bolt of pain shot up his arm from the elbow. Roland, however, wasn't done with him, not by a long shot. He punched Griffin in the face, so Griffin kicked him in the stomach and they both fell back, panting. Griffn's nose was bleeding, and he could feel one of his eyes swelling shut. Not to mention that he only had one good arm, seeing as Roland had surely broken the other one. HE tried to move it a little and almost screamed. Shit. He'd have to finish this while he could still could. Roland was getting up, settling into a painful-looking crouch, panting like a dog. Ha. Griffin hoped He'd broken at least three of his ribs. Looking at the rage in his face, he changed his mind. He hoped He'd broken all of them, otherwise he'd be in for quite a fight. He took a deep breath and prepared to jump again. That was when he made that first big mistake. He'd already pulled that trick of jumping directly behind his adversary once, and Roland was ready for it. The second was thinking that even injured and very winded was thinking that Roland would be an easy target. As I his jump put him right behind his enemy, Roland spun around, swinging his knife high, and the force of his jump, and the cruel, cruel force of gravity carried him down right on top of it. The blade sank into his stomach and curved up, carving a deep arching gash from the left side of his stomach to his right collarbone. Even before he'd had a chance to fully react, before the pain had really hit, he was jumping again, backwards, toward the one person he had left in this world, who cared, and would do anything to protect him and would take care of him when he couldn't take care of himself. And, despite his most optimistic thoughts, he knew that he needed help.

Even before he'd actually landed from the jump, he could feel the blood rushing out of him, leaving his body. He could feel death, actually waiting to take him. There was a lot of blood. It was everywhere, dripping down his clothes, already pooling on the floor. He landed from his jump, hard, and his knees buckled. All the adrenaline that'd kept him going for the last few hours left him in a rush, and he hit the floor. Pain washed over him in waves, each one leaving him gasping for air, breathless in the agony. Darkness was closing in fast, but just before it did, he felt cool hands under his head, lifting it off of the floor. As his bleeding, dying body was shifted from its position, the world exploded into brilliant red agony, followed by blackness.

I couldn't get anything else out of him. The pain and loss of blood made the memories fuzzy and hard to decipher. I frowned as I realized that he'd passed out almost immediately after jumping to my place. Unconsciousness that soon after the injury was a very bad sign. I grabbed him around the waist and heaved him onto a nearby couch. Already his breathing was harsh and uneven. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. Shit. Internal bleeding. If I was going to save him, I'd have to do something, and fast.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue. Pretty please?

Chapter Two

He was floating in a sea of pain, never-ending pain, that encompassed his entire body, but seemed to radiate from his chest and stomach. It had simply hurt before, but now it was a new sort of pain, one that came and went rapidly, almost efficiently. His broken elbow ached distantly, but he was barely aware of it. He could see the pain, hear it, smell it, taste it: A horrible feeling. It was all he could do not to scream in agony. As the pain brought him closer and closer to consciousness, he grew more and more aware of the exact nature of the agony in his abdomen. Sure, there was the old, principle pain of the gash, but then there was something else too, a quick, darting pain, then a quick pull, then nothing, until it began again. He finally realized that someone was stitching him up, trying to keep him from bleeding to death. He figured he was making a pretty bad job of it. Staying alive that is. A particularly painful stitch and he was almost fully conscious. He moaned and tried to open his eyes. He got a brief glimpse of a girl sitting next to him, surgical needle and thread in hand, with sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. A single tear ran down her cheek. He knew her. Mallory. The name floated up from the depths of his consciousness, but he lacked the strength to pursue it further. Probably sensing the pain in his thoughts and expression, she looked up and met his eyes in for a brief second. Then, he felt a thin tendril of her calmness in his mind, pushing him deeper into unconsciousness. Instead of fighting off her well-meaning interference as he usually did, he succumbed gladly, happy to sink into oblivion. Darkness enfolded him like a blanket.

I shook my hair out of my eyes and continued stitching up the wound in Griffin's side. I could barely sense the pain in his mind, which was a bad sign indeed, seeing as there must have been loads of it, radiating from the massive wound in his torso. As I'd half-dragged him to the couch, I'd noticed that his left arm was hanging at a very wrong angle, but figured there was nothing I could do for it until I'd stopped the other bleeding. Every stitch I pulled through his skin, I could feel his flinch, both mentally and physically. At every stitch he'd gotten closer and closer to consciousness, and to the unbearable pain. I still kept a part of my mind merged with his, for moral support and to notify me of any changes in how he was feeling. After one particularly rough stitch, he'd gasped and whimpered a little. I glanced at him, and was startled to see that his eyes were opened. He was so far gone that there wasn't much of a difference in his mental state between conscious and unconscious. But there was just so much damage done, and so much pain. I could at least spare him some of that. I reached out with my mind and pushed him back, deeper into unconsciousness. Even unconscious, he was still in a lot of pain.

I felt a tear slide down my face. I didn't know if I could save him, and I didn't know if I could bear it if I lost him. He'd always been there for me, ever since, well, ever since I was born. I was three, just barely able to remember when he started to jump. After that, we'd moved a lot, and the memories were kind of jumbled, but he was there in all of them, a solid, steady influence in my, _our_, often turbulent lives. That certain glint in those blue eyes, the mocking grin, that characteristic half-smirk he'd get when he was about to say something that was sure to get him into trouble with our parents, the hands that'd often tickled me until I couldn't breath when we were children. The memories of our childhood almost overcame me and I had to choke back the memories of our parents, killed before Griffin's tenth birthday, while I was still a wide-eyed eight-year-old, wondering why Griff spent so many nights crying, and why Mummy and Daddy weren't around anymore. He'd raised me as best he could, but, soon, he was too close to being caught every day, dodging bullets and Paladins daily, and he spent too much time on his quest for vengeance to properly look after me. He knew that he was in for a hard, probably short life, that it was no way for me to grow up, and so, by the time I'd turned eleven, I was living with a foster family under an assumed name, sworn never to tell anyone about Griffin's jumping. I'd grown up relatively normally, graduating early and ending up as an EMT in one of New York's hospitals before I realized that I could 'hear' people's thoughts and that I'd better get out of town before someone realized it. Griff had helped me at first, but now I was doing just fine on my own, and I hadn't seen him for a while, until he'd jumped into the middle of my living room, near dead. It's a tough life, being the mind-reading sister of a jumper.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue. Pretty please?

Chapter Three

He was floating in a sea of pain, never-ending pain, that encompassed his entire body, but seemed to radiate from his chest and stomach. It had simply hurt before, but now it was a new sort of pain, one that came and went rapidly, almost efficiently. His broken elbow ached distantly, but he was barely aware of it. He could see the pain, hear it, smell it, taste it: A horrible feeling. It was all he could do not to scream in agony. As the pain brought him closer and closer to consciousness, he grew more and more aware of the exact nature of the agony in his abdomen. Sure, there was the old, principle pain of the gash, but then there was something else too, a quick, darting pain, then a quick pull, then nothing, until it began again. He finally realized that someone was stitching him up, trying to keep him from bleeding to death. He figured he was making a pretty bad job of it. Staying alive that is. A particularly painful stitch and he was almost fully conscious. He moaned and tried to open his eyes. He got a brief glimpse of a girl sitting next to him, surgical needle and thread in hand, with sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. A single tear ran down her cheek. He knew her. Mallory. The name floated up from the depths of his consciousness, but he lacked the strength to pursue it further. Probably sensing the pain in his thoughts and expression, she looked up and met his eyes in for a brief second. Then, he felt a thin tendril of her calmness in his mind, pushing him deeper into unconsciousness. Instead of fighting off her well-meaning interference as he usually did, he succumbed gladly, happy to sink into oblivion. Darkness enfolded him like a blanket.

I shook my hair out of my eyes and continued stitching up the wound in Griffin's side. I could barely sense the pain in his mind, which was a bad sign indeed, seeing as there must have been loads of it, radiating from the massive wound in his torso. As I'd half-dragged him to the couch, I'd noticed that his left arm was hanging at a very wrong angle, but figured there was nothing I could do for it until I'd stopped the other bleeding. Every stitch I pulled through his skin, I could feel his flinch, both mentally and physically. At every stitch he'd gotten closer and closer to consciousness, and to the unbearable pain. I still kept a part of my mind merged with his, for moral support and to notify me of any changes in how he was feeling. After one particularly rough stitch, he'd gasped and whimpered a little. I glanced at him, and was startled to see that his eyes were opened. He was so far gone that there wasn't much of a difference in his mental state between conscious and unconscious. But there was just so much damage done, and so much pain. I could at least spare him some of that. I reached out with my mind and pushed him back, deeper into unconsciousness. Even unconscious, he was still in a lot of pain.

I felt a tear slide down my face. I didn't know if I could save him, and I didn't know if I could bear it if I lost him. He'd always been there for me, ever since, well, ever since I was born. I was three, just barely able to remember when he started to jump. After that, we'd moved a lot, and the memories were kind of jumbled, but he was there in all of them, a solid, steady influence in my, _our_, often turbulent lives. That certain glint in those blue eyes, the mocking grin, that characteristic half-smirk he'd get when he was about to say something that was sure to get him into trouble with our parents, the hands that'd often tickled me until I couldn't breath when we were children. The memories of our childhood almost overcame me and I had to choke back the memories of our parents, killed before Griffin's tenth birthday, while I was still a wide-eyed eight-year-old, wondering why Griff spent so many nights crying, and why Mummy and Daddy weren't around anymore. He'd raised me as best he could, but, soon, he was too close to being caught every day, dodging bullets and Paladins daily, and he spent too much time on his quest for vengeance to properly look after me. He knew that he was in for a hard, probably short life, that it was no way for me to grow up, and so, by the time I'd turned eleven, I was living with a foster family under an assumed name, sworn never to tell anyone about Griffin's jumping. I'd grown up relatively normally, graduating early and ending up as an EMT in one of New York's hospitals before I realized that I could 'hear' people's thoughts and that I'd better get out of town before someone realized it. Griff had helped me at first, but now I was doing just fine on my own, and I hadn't seen him for a while, until he'd jumped into the middle of my living room, near dead. It's a tough life, being the mind-reading sister of a jumper.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue. Pretty please?

Ch. 4

Pain. Still. Lots of it, but maybe less than before, I don't really know. Just darkness and pain, that's all I'm aware of, except for that a growing realization that it's getting harder and harder to breath. Soon every breath is a rasp, gurgling blood in the back of my throat. I try to breath, so hard to breath, but the blood chokes me and every breath is getting shorter and shorter. Less air is getting to my lungs with every breath and I know that if something doesn't change fast, I haven't got much time. Slowly, painfully, I open my eyes. Mallory's there beside me, as always, slumped over, asleep in a chair. I hate to wake her up, since she looks so peaceful, but I need her help.

I reach over to grab her arm and shake her awake, but another coughing spasm grips me and I can't, I'm just lying there, on my back, too weak to move, just trying not to drown in my own blood, and by the time I've gotten the coughing under control again, Mallory's already awake, at my side, wiping the blood off my face gently. She's kneeling on the floor next to the couch and her eyes are just about level with mine, and I can see that she's been through my mind and knows what I've been up to and how much pain I'm in. I know because my misery is reflected in her eyes. It takes me a minute to realize she's speaking. I gulp down half a breath of air while I can still breathe and croak, weakly, "Huh?" "You're going to have to get on your side, otherwise you're… you're going to drown in your own blood, essentially… But, turning you is... it's going to hurt." I nod and grit my teeth, not really understanding, until she puts one hand on as much of the good part of my side as she can, and starts to move me. It takes ever bit of my willpower not to scream as she simply touches me, it hurts that much, but I manage it, barely. As the pain recedes some, I try to help her as much as I can by shifting myself, but the stitches tug and hurt and bleed a little bit more, and Mallory stops me with a glare. Then a cough comes and I can't breathe again. I gasp and hack and finally manage to spit blood out of my mouth enough to breathe again.

Another look at the stitches and I realize that she must've stitched me up. I'm glad I hadn't been conscious for that part. I've had stitches before and it was always a very painful and unpleasant experience. At least, unconscious, I hadn't given Mallory much of a fight. It takes me a second to realize that I'm lying on my side, and that it's somewhat easier to breath. My chest hurts and I cough again, and Mallory's right there, looking concerned but I just cough a few more times and spit blood onto the floor. Suddenly, I'm exhausted, weak from loss of blood and the exertion of turning onto my side and all of the coughing. I glance up into Mallory's eyes and I can see that she's concerned. I do my best to reassure her in my mind before I pass out.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue. Pretty please?

Ch. 5

I'd done all I could do for him at the moment. Moving him had exhausted both him physically, and me, mentally. Seeing the agony in his eyes, along with a sort of acceptance had really shaken me. It was as though he did this sort of thing every day. He had already accepted pain, I knew that from our whole lives together and all the times he'd come home wounded, bleeding, bruised and broken. Pain and injury were just facts of his life. It was not acceptance of pain I'd seen. It was acceptance of something else. He had accepted death.

Panicked, I pushed at his mind, too roughly, and almost shoved him out of unconsciousness. I felt for his determination, and stubborn pride that I'd always known wouldn't allow him to give up. I groped in his subconscious with increasing urgency. I couldn't find it. Not a glimpse of will, not a flicker of resolve, or a trace of the pigheadedness that'd so irked me all my life. There wasn't even any fear. He'd lived with fear his whole life, and learned to control it, but never so much that I couldn't see it in his mind. If even the fear was gone, then so was my brother. I had to refocus my eyes to see him, instead of into his head. I had to stare hard to see his chest rise and fall, and it terrified me to observe that it was getting slower. I was losing him, fast.

I shoved back into his mind with renewed pressure, looking for something, anything I could use to keep him alive. I had done everything I could for his physical injuries. If there was anything that would keep him alive, it would have to come from his own mind. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Then I caught a glimmer of something. Anger. Anger towards those who had killed our parents. Those who were now killing him. But it was fading, fast.

I grabbed at it and refused to let it leave. I pushed his mind, hard, trying to push him out of his comatose state. He refused, weakly, but enough to keep him out of the real world.  
He struggled against me as I fought so hard to keep him alive. He was so damn stubborn.

Then it hit me. So long as he had something to fight, Griffin's fighting spirit wouldn't let him give up. Wouldn't let him die. So I pushed again, rougher than before, and he pushed back, equally hard. I felt a rush of the beginning of triumph. His breathing was getting stronger. I pushed him again, but it was too hard. He gasped awake, and tried to sit up. I grabbed at his shoulder and pushed him back down. He was really awake now, eyes full of pain, asking me why I was doing this to him. "Griffin, you can't give up" I near-yelled into his face, "You have things to do! The… the Paladins! You have to…" I trailed off, in tears.

At 'Paladins,' though, a semi-alert look had come into his eyes. "Paladins?" he seemed confused. The look in his eyes changed. "Roland." It was a statement, full of purpose. He tried to get up again. I pushed him back down, and groped at his mind, searching for what I hoped desperately to find. I almost screamed with joy when I felt the strength and fierceness back in his mind.

I now had a new problem, though. He was determined to get up and find Roland, and was ignoring his own pain in face of his goal. Fortunately, that problem was much more easily remedied. I reached into his mind and pushed him back into unconsciousness again, no longer fearing to lose him. He faded back into oblivion quickly and, as I withdrew from his mind, I saw his breathing steady. He wouldn't die on me of his own accord now, I was sure.

I only had to stay near enough to him to feel it if his conditioned worsened. I retired to the nearest chair and collapsed, my strength as spent as Griffin's, and immediately fell asleep.


End file.
